


Strange Bedfellows

by Gabihime



Series: First Things First [2]
Category: Sofia the First (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 03:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3104204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabihime/pseuds/Gabihime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are times when a seventeen year old princess finds it best to exercise discretion in regards to her regular bedmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Bedfellows

Cedric the Sensational was awakened rather rudely by being shaken until his teeth rattled. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, blinking in the bright morning sunlight as a disheveled princess came into focus.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up," she cried, continuing to shake him. "I'm late! We overslept! They're already missing me at breakfast!"

" _Princess_ ," Cedric grumbled most unpleasantly, "I am awake. You can stop shaking me."

"Well, you don't look like you're awake!" announced Sofia as she struggled to crawl over top of him. She lost her balance as she did and they both ended up rolling off the bed in a tangle of blankets.

Cedric was left with one bare foot on the canopied bed and a disgusted looking rabbit staring him directly in the face.

"I don't see why we have to do this every morning," complained Clover, eyeing the upside down sorcerer dubiously. "You'd think you'd have learned by now to get up with an alarm clock. Or that the grim reaper here wouldn't sleep like he was actually dead."

"You'd think," Sofia agreed, laughing nervously as she ran around, hunting up her shoes. "And he doesn't sleep like he's dead. He's just a sound sleeper. He works awfully hard all day as the court's sorcerer, you know. It's no wonder he's tired at the end of the day."

Cedric slowly disentangled himself from the blankets, rubbing at his eyes as he got to his feet.

"Sofia, I don't really think it's  _working_   _hard_  that tires him out," Clover said, rolling his eyes.

Sofia giggled indiscreetly into her hand.

"Is your rabbit lackey making disparaging comments about me again?" demanded Cedric, pursing his lips. "I ought to make him into a pair of bunny slippers."

"Yeah, I'll be scared of you the day it rains jelly beans," Clover scoffed.

"Of course he isn't," she reassured the gentleman who was currently shrugging into his robes. "Clover's just concerned about your health, is all. It's important to get a lot of rest, after all."

Sofia, still in her nightgown, crossed the space to meet him and gave him an early morning kiss, which seemed to improve his temper considerably. She knew she had to sweeten him up for the news that was coming.

"It's too late for you to slip out the usual way," she said, squirming out of her gauzy nightgown and squirming into a lacy petticoat. Sofia getting dressed was a three ring circus - acrobatic, daring, and always enthusiastic - very much worth watching if one were interested in such things (and one was). "You might have to go out the window," she said apologetically.

"Wonderful," Cedric groaned as he recovered his wand from the bedside table. "I'm so looking forward to a relaxing morning stroll through a frozen garden filled with guards. When someone stops to ask me where I've been, I'll just say 'oh, helping the princess with her garters,'" he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Mr. Chuckles can't go out the window,even if I'd sometimes like to push him out," objected Clover from where he sat in the window seat. "It snowed last night. If he goes out your window, everyone will know that  _somebody_ left that way. Not to mention it's pretty much _broad daylight_. Prince Charming tries the garters line, the guards might really throw him in the dungeon."

Sofia stuck her tongue out at Clover as she pushed her dress into Cedric's hands.

"Help me into it?" she asked, like she always asked.

He helped her into it like he always did, and soon she was fluffing her hair and trying to put her tiara on straight.

"Not out the window then," she said, indicating the new snowfall. Her slippered feet were cold on the floor and so she stepped closer to him, putting both her hands in his pockets. "It's got to be the hard way, then."

"Sofia - " Cedric objected.

"That's all I can think of, unless you've got a better idea?" she asked hopefully.

He shook his head and she shrugged.

"The hard way, then. I'm going to be late for school soon," she said. "Only please try and make sure we don't end up in the royal dining hall again. Mom and dad are still having breakfast, and it was so hard to explain when it happened last time."

"I got nervous," Cedric said defensively, crossing his arms over his chest again.

"Oh, I know you did," Sofia apologized, threading her arms through his and hanging off of him. "Of course it wasn't on purpose and I know you won't do it again. It was silly of me to say anything about it," she said, rising on her toes to kiss him again.

As she broke the kiss, she recognized that they were both in a downstairs broom closet, crammed between a wet mop and a dustpan. A kiss usually eased the difficulty of "the hard way," Sofia had discovered. In fact, if Cedric was reluctant or uncertain about anything, a kiss usually did a great deal to help things along. Sofia had heard that kisses from princes were bound to break curses, but she had learned that kisses from princesses granted wishes.  _Her_  wishes were always being granted, at least. He didn't complain much either.

"Thank you Cedric," Sofia said very sweetly. "I'll see you after school! And remember, don't come out until Clover gives you the all clear signal."

And then she was gone in a clatter and whirl, even as he said, "Good day, Princess Sofia."

When he finally struggled out of the broom closet he again faced the judgmental eyes of a small grey rabbit.

"Well Flopsy, do you have something to say?" Cedric demanded haughtily, but he had learned by now how important it was to stay on the good side of all of Sofia's little forest minions.

Before he left the hall, he conjured a basket of radishes for the rabbit and they parted as they always parted: uneasy allies devoted to the same cause - Princess Sofia.

* * *

Sofia was not really all that distressed about the state of her love life. She was quite satisfied, actually, although all the sneaking around was a little hair-raising at times. It had been far more frustrating before, when she hadn't been sure of how he felt. Now, she felt able to do anything, to say anything, to  _be_ anything. She was determined to do things in her own way, in her own time.

Fortunately, Enchancia's court sorcerer was willing to accommodate her.

At seventeen, Sofia was approaching majority. She would be graduating from Royal Preparatory at the spring ceremony, and at that time she thought she might approach her parents with her plans for the future, which were quite creative and expansive, and figured one particular sorcerer very prominently. Although polite and friendly to all-comers, she had no interest in a future that anyone else devised for her. Her heart wasn't a blank slate. She had years and years of silly, warm, colorful memories crayoned into the book of her self. What had begun small had become quite large, and in the end she couldn't even begin to number the pages of "why I love you."

Their intimate involvement had all begun unexpectedly some months before - or rather, it had begun unexpectedly  _for him_. Sofia had been impatiently expecting it for some time. At ten years old, she had decided that she was going to marry Cedric when she got old enough - perhaps twelve. It seemed very sensible to her. She liked him the very most out of all the people she had ever met. She worried that other people didn't understand him very well. To her, he was like a watercolor book whose colors were a mystery until they appeared suddenly, upon application of Sofia. There were all sorts of fascinating thoughts and feelings bottled up inside of him. Even if other people didn't appreciate his prowess as a wizard, she would always be his number one apprentice, ready to reassure and encourage him. She was a very improper princess (although wildly popular with practically everyone) and so perhaps it wasn't very surprising she had tied her thread to such an unlikely candidate. He had always been there when she needed him, even if he had sometimes been slightly distracted by his own plans.

Her feelings hadn't changed over time. If Sofia's heart was any one thing, it was constant, even if it was ever-changing, like the rainbow sheen of oil on water. The exact nature of her feelings had both broadened and become more specific as time had slipped away. Beside the words 'friend' and 'ally' had gradually appeared the word 'confidant,' and finally the extremely satisfying if flush-inducing word 'lover.' They had spent eight summers together, eight winters, and had already written a rich lifetime's worth of memories on the leaves of their book of the past as the pages turned. Without either of them realizing it as it happened day by day, Sofia had grown up. She had surprised him by kissing him in the corner of his workshop one afternoon when he had been trying to explain something about a particular potion.

He had knocked three books off his desk and upset a vial of particularly corrosive liquid in the chaos that ensued. It had not been an instant success, like the kiss that breaks a bad fairy's curse, but she had not given up, and once his abject horror had passed, he had accepted her.

In the end it turned out that he had rather liked the kiss more than he had at first cared to admit, that he liked  _her_ more than he at first cared to admit, and this had made her light up like a firework. Although he was awkward about sharing his own feelings and afraid of being hurt, he was generous and sincere. The evening he had picked her up, put her on his desk, and kissed her tenderly and honestly while Wormwood squawked indignantly on his perch was easily one of the three best moments in a life that was practically  _bursting_  with best moments.

This in turn had led to their current circumstances.

Sofia had consulted with a number of princesses on her situation RE: Court Sorcerer and the girls had all offered her a lot of good advice. Ariel in particular had an ocean of ideas about how one kept one's parents from finding out what one was up to until it was absolutely necessary that they be told. Jasmine had informed her that the quickest way for a princess to make a man into a prince (barring the intervention of a genie) was to marry him herself. This Sofia was quite ready to believe considering the example of her own parents. If the shoe fit, after all...

Finally, Belle had been very sympathetic about others not immediately grasping the good qualities of one's significant other. Sofia had quite appreciated this bit of moral support. All in all, the consortium of princesses agreed that Sofia ought to follow her heart where it led her, and there was no question that it led her to Cedric. Even if she closed her eyes and turned around and round, like playing blind man's bluff, she always came back to Cedric. Her heart was a compass and he was magnetic north.

It was good that the princesses offered her this advice, because while it was what she would have done regardless, she liked having the validation. She was a princess who liked putting ducks in a row, even if it took her a long time to properly arrange them. It was also a relief to know they were behind her. There was no denying that princesses understood matters of the heart, and there was absolutely no arguing with  _a lot of princesses who were all in agreement._

When the time came, Sofia was confident she could secure the blessings of her parents. If she was to win the blessings of the kingdom, she was going to have to educate them about Cedric's good points - a list she considered quite lengthy.

And so Sofia studied quite hard at school, was a good sport, minded her Ps and Qs, and only occasionally took breaks to dream about the misty future, both multicolored and distant and more immediately accessible.

* * *

After stumbling out of the broom closet, slightly damp from having been pressed against a wet mop for several minutes, Cedric managed to go about his day without incident, although distracting thoughts of an enchantingly meddlesome princess were never far off.

She could get him into trouble even when she was absent, it seemed.

Whenever the king called Cedric into the audience chamber these days, the sorcerer was always absolutely certain that he had been found out and would surely face  _consequences_. It always turned out to be routine business, but this never stopped Cedric from agonizing about it. He had bitten all the nails on both his hands down to the quick. Cedric was absolutely positive that every time King Roland made small talk about Sofia in his presence that he lost several hours from his life, if not  _days_.

_Yes, she did seem to be glowing these days. Yes, it was probably on account of the care she took of her health. Yes, she lit up the room when she smiled. Yes, she was very sweet and thoughtful. Yes, she was so lively she always seemed to be going a dozen directions at once. Yes, she was very inventive and intelligent. Yes, he was unmistakably, stupidly, and dreadfully in love with her._

Cedric lived his life in constant horror that he would let this last truth slip out.

It had slipped out once, in front of the king, but Roland had just laughed.

"I suppose everybody loves Sofia," he had said with a paternal smile, "She's just very easy to love."

Cedric had managed to bottle his indignance before it had exploded out of him quite inappropriately.

No, majesty, not everyone loved Sofia like he did, or if they did, Cedric was going to have to dispose of them in a particularly gruesome way, just to prove a point. He was his mother's son, after all.

Rather than the minefield that was the royal audience chamber, Cedric much preferred to be holed up in his workshop, left to his own devices, or perhaps writing another letter to his mother. His letters had had so much Sofia in them lately that mummy had begun suggesting he might try a nefarious scheme to ensnare her affections, and thus wrap her around his little finger. Alas, he had not the heart to tell mummy that the shoe was very much on the other foot. The amulet stayed around her pretty little neck and he found he was content with that outcome. That was just the way these things sometimes turned out, he thought.

After all, if the amulet was  _hers_ , and she insisted that she was  _his_ , that made the amulet his by proxy, or as good as his, anyway. He would allow her to keep possession of it out of the goodness of his heart.

He was fond of how it looked against her clavicles.

And despite how hazardous his current sleeping habits were to his health and continued career, Cedric found that he really could not help himself. He began most mornings wet, in a broom closet, since she very nearly  _always_ overslept, and they  _always_ had to come down the hard way, but then that wasn't really true, because he began nearly every morning tangled up in warm blankets with Sofia, which made the damp part in the broom closet worth enduring. When he didn't spend the evening in the rooms of the Second Princess of Enchancia, he was cross and all out of sorts the next day. He had discovered that he did not think it was particularly nice to sleep without her, despite the fact that she sometimes kicked him in the spine when she was asleep.

And so he would continue to take risks, continue to walk a high wire above what he was sure was certain doom, because he was no longer interested in a life without her in it.

* * *

When the second princess at last blustered into her rooms at nine o'clock, she found the court sorcerer sitting in a dressing chair in her closet, idly reading a book:  _Modern Marvels of Engineering._

"I didn't know you were interested in engineering," he said, eyeing her as she flounced in and immediately began scrambling out of her day dress.

"I'm a princess," she announced, "And that means I'm interested in practically everything, particularly engineering," she said. "Help me out of this?"

He helped her out of it, as he always did, although sometimes it took a bit of tugging to get her out of her ridiculous dresses. She was soon comfortable in a ruffled lavender nightgown and ready for the evening's entertainments. She flopped down on his knee, quite uninvited, and regarded the book herself.

She had brought a basket of sandwiches with her.

Evenings were the best times. They were only rarely disturbed as Sofia had made it known that as a growing princess, she required quite a lot of sleep and therefore went to bed very early. She regularly locked the door to her rooms after nine o'clock, and he locked the door to his, so no one would find him missing if they went looking. This made an evening spent in her room quite cozy. She always brought bedtime snacks with her - enough for two, because she was a growing princess and had a healthy appetite.

Before nine o'clock she was Enchancia's Princess Sofia, and she acquitted herself splendidly in that role. She had time for everyone. She sang and chatted, solved people's problems, made all sorts of friends, helped the kingdom by fulfilling her royal duties, and did so many good deeds that the Amulet of Avalor practically hummed with goodwill.

But after nine o'clock she was Cedric's Princess Sofia. He was willing to share her with the rest of the kingdom only because she insisted that she liked him best.

Sofia found his petulant jealousy charming, although she did her best to gently discourage it, lest it grow unruly and make him bitter. Whenever she teased him over it, she always reminded him that her evenings and mornings were his, which was something no one else could claim.

Their nights, however, belonged to the both of them.

Their evenings were sweet and full of wholesome activities. Sometimes they read together, sometimes they talked a great deal, sometimes they played board games, and sometimes they just sat and enjoyed the silence. It was particularly nice on winter evenings, when she could put on her fluffy robe, curl up next to him on the little sofa, and talk over the events of the day while having cocoa made my Clover and Whatnaught.

But tonight was perhaps not a night for cocoa and talking over the day. Just as Sofia was settling down against Cedric, there was a knock at the door.

This was altogether unusual. They had been very rarely disturbed in all the time that they had started keeping private company with one another. Unaccustomed to such an intrusion during this sanctified time, Sofia mildly panicked. She stood Cedric up, marched him over to the corner of the closet, forced him to sit down on the floor, and then piled several spangled purple dresses over him.

It was really not a very convincing disguise. He looked at her with half-lidded eyes and Sofia winced.

"Just stay right here," she said. "I'll get rid of whoever it is, I promise! Just don't run off," she pleaded.

He agreed to stay, and she was off, lickety-split to the hallway door.

It was Amber, and so Sofia was obliged to at least open the door.

One did not keep one's elder sister waiting, particularly when one's elder sister was a princess.

"I've got an early start tomorrow - Princess Summit, you know - and I would like to borrow a pair of your topaz slippers," Amber said, yawning languidly. "I think they'll be just the right touch to finish off my  _ensemble_."

"Oh!" said Sofia. "Oh, oh." She blanched. The slippers were in the closet. The closet where Cedric was. The slippers were in the closet with Cedric. She gave Amber what she hoped was her most pleasant princess smile in an attempt to cover her wild anxiety. "Of course you can," she said brightly. "You wait here. I'll just go get them for you."

She wasn't sure exactly how polite it was to ask the first princess to wait in the hall, but Sofia didn't see that she had many options. Amber wasn't perturbed by her sister's breach of conduct, however. She simply sashayed into the room without invitation.

"Don't be silly, Sofia," she said with a shrug. "You've got six pairs of topaz slippers. How will you know which pair I want?"

"Well," Sofia said, leaping between Amber and the door to the closet, "You could describe them to me? How topazy would you say they are? Like extremely topazy, or just sort of topazy?"

Amber rolled her eyes, "Really, Sofia, it'll be faster for me to get them myself."

Despite Sofia's protests, Amber pushed past her into the closet, and Sofia readied herself for a shrill and indignant shriek as the first princess discovered the court sorcerer under a pile of dresses and quite possibly accused him of underwear theft.

When no shriek came, Sofia followed her sister into the closet, wondering if Cedric had been forced to turn Amber into stone - and possibly himself into stone as well, by mistake. She found no such tableau. Instead, Amber was calmly sorting through Sofia's shoes. Sofia scanned the room in blank amazement, but could find no sign of Cedric. The dresses she had piled on him for camouflage were lying discarded in the corner. Perhaps he had escaped back to his tower after all.

Well, that was rotten luck.

At last Amber found the pair of bejeweled shoes that she wanted and retired to bed, but not before eyeing the pile of dresses in the corner of the closet with a suspect eye.

"You really should clean that up, Sofia," she suggested, and then made her grand exit.

After she had gone, Sofia locked the door behind her and let out a great sigh as she slumped against it. Then she took a deep breath and marched herself back into the closet to search for her missing sorcerer.

"Are you still in here Cedric?" she wondered aloud, dropping down to her hands and knees to look under the hem of a particularly bouffant skirt.

"I am," came a very high, reedy voice. "I thought you said you were going to send whoever it was away."

"Well, I was, but it was Amber, and she didn't want to take my suggestions - " began Sofia, turning around, "You sound really strange, Cedric - "

Of course he sounded strange. He was about twelve inches tall, and struggling to get out of the pile of dresses. She immediately swooped over to him and scooped him up.

"You're adorable!" she announced.

"Princess Sofia," he began in indignation, "I am certainly not adorable. Dashing and handsome, perhaps, but  _not_  adorable. Put me down this instant!"

"But you're so cuuuute," she protested, rubbing the top of his head with the tip of one of her fingers. Her cheeks had begun to flush rosily, and the very small Cedric turned the color of a ripe strawberry.

"Unhand me!" he insisted, and then sputtered out " _Magnata_!"

Of course, the sudden surprise of having a very much full size Cedric in her hands sent them both tumbling over in a tangle, and Sofia bumped her head on another pair of topaz slippers. She sat up ruefully rubbing her head.

"Well, I don't regret it at all," she declared. "You  _were_ adorable."

"Princess," Cedric managed to wheeze out with some difficulty, "Please get off of me."

With a start Sofia realized she was happily sitting square on Cedric's chest. She scrambled to get off of him and helped him to sit up. He seemed slightly dazed, possibly from lack of oxygen.

"Oh, I am sorry, Cedric," she apologized, and planted a kiss on his forehead for good measure. It was her own magic spell. This seemed to do much to restore his good will, and she was just helping him to his feet when there was another knock at the door.

He gave her a look, but she shook her head frantically.

"I promise. This time I'll definitely just send them away. Stay in here a little longer, pretty please?" she begged, gently pushing him back toward the pile of dresses.

He rolled his eyes but retreated.

Sofia again closed the closet carefully before going to the great hallway doors.

"Whoever it is, I'm really very much very tired tonight, so I'd really really like to get some sleep, if it can wait until morning," she told the door.

"Well, I would really really like to get that book I loaned you back," came an uncertain voice.

"Oh, James," Sofia sighed in relief as she unlocked the door. "All right. I'll get it for you."

She turned around to retrieve it from the bedside table and then realized in horror that the book that James wanted was the same one Cedric had been reading in the closet when she had first come upon him.

The book was in the closet with Cedric, right at this exact moment.

She wheeled on James with a chipper smile and suddenly announced, "Sorry, I seem to have lost it. Can I maybe give it back to you tomorrow?"

James shrugged. "It's no big deal, but I don't mind helping you look for it."

"Oh no, I don't want to trouble you - " Sofia trailed off because the crown prince had already pushed his way into her room and begun a search for his missing book. At the moment, he was crawling under the bed.

After a little spelunking while Sofia shifted about nervously, James emerged from under the dust ruffle with a familiar object in his hands. It was one of Cedric's slippers, one that he had lost several nights previous and complained about to no end.

"What's this?" James asked, wrinkling his nose. "It sure doesn't look like it'll fit you."

Sofia crossed the space between herself and James like she was off a starting block and seized the slipper from him.

"Oh this?" she asked, her voice climbing in mild panic. "This is just," her eyes darted around the room until they landed on the rabbit who was sardonically watching this whole scene from the window seat. "It's one of Clover's chew toys," she said, flinging the shoe at the rabbit, who ducked it artfully.

"Oh, okay," James said with a shrug. "I didn't know rabbits had chew toys."

"They definitely do," Sofia insisted with a deliberate nod. "Lots and lots of chew toys. Clover just loves that one! It's his favorite."

Behind her, Clover made a face as if he were ill.

"I don't know if you should let your rabbit chew on old shoes," James said with a raised eyebrow. "It seems like it might be making him sick."

"Well then, I definitely won't anymore," Sofia said with another deliberate nod, moving to confiscate the slipper from Clover. She shoved it into a drawer in her vanity table before wagging a finger at him. "No more chewy shoes for you!" she warned.

Clover rolled his eyes expressively.

During her chastisement, Sofia desperately sent a message to Clover with a combination of body language and interpretive dance.

_Book book book. Get the book from the closet._

Sofia had no idea how she'd go about explaining anything else of Cedric's that James might manage to turn up in his investigation of her room. She needed to get the prince out of her room as soon as possible.

By striking up a conversation on combustion engines, Sofia managed to distract James from his detective work while Clover fetched the book.

"I'm not even going to tell you how many carrots you owe me," said the rabbit as he pressed the book into the hands Sofia had clasped nervously behind her back.

She gave him her best winsome look over her shoulder, and he seemed pacified. Then she hustled James out of the room with good night wishes and again locked the door.

In the closet, Cedric was sitting in the dressing chair again, his cheek propped against his palm.

"Now do you think we might have a little peace?" he wondered grimly, "Or ought I retire to my own rooms before the rest of the royal family comes for a slumber party?"

"Oh Cedric," Sofia laughed helplessly. "No one else is going to come - "

Just then there was another knock on the door and Sofia went white.

"I knew it," Cedric said dryly, "It's King Roland and the Queen. I'm finally going to be run out of the kingdom on a rail."

"Cedric, no one's going to run you out of the kingdom on a rail," Sofia insisted. "Shh," she commanded quite royally, then gave him another kiss that was like a promise and dashed out of the closet, pulling the door closed behind her.

"I am definitely already asleep," Sofia announced to the closed door.

"Begging your pardon, miss, but it's me, Violet," said the voice on the other side of the door.

Sofia sighed dramatically. "What can I help you with?" she asked, hoping to push the maid off until the morning. "I'm awfully sleepy - "

"Well miss, Princess Amber told me that there was an awful mess in your closet, and I just came to straighten things up," said Violet.

"You can definitely straighten it up in the morning," Sofia suggested cheerfully. "It'll still be here waiting for you after I go off to school!"

"Miss," began Violet, gently lecturing, "If you leave all your nice dresses on the ground, they'll get wrinkled. That's a lot more work for me, miss. It'll only take a minute. I can have them hung up again in no time."

"I'll pick them up, I'll pick them up," Sofia attempted to reassure the maid, even as she heard the housekeeping key turn in the lock. Frantically she looked behind her, wondering if she could push the wardrobe in front of the door with Clover's help.

But Violet was already in the room and headed to the closet. Sofia scrambled to head her off, but the maid made the closet before the princess, and Sofia was left scuttling in afterward.

Shockingly, the closet was quite empty, apart from the pile of dresses that were still dumped in the corner.

Violet clicked her tongue reprovingly as she went about carefully hanging up the dresses.

"Miss, even if you're in a hurry, you ought to hang up your things," she said kindly. "I know you've gotten good at dressing yourself, but that's no excuse for you to leave your things on the ground. If you like, I can come help you dress again, like I used to."

Sofia was mesmerized, watching the stack of dresses slowly dwindle as Violet hung them back on their respective hangers. At every moment she expected a diminutive sorcerer to be revealed huddled up against the wall, but as Violet drew the last dress away there was no sorcerer to be found.

She was momentarily very perplexed, but at Violet's suggestion, she shook herself out of her confusion.

"Oh no," Sofia said, shaking her head. "I wouldn't dream of it. Besides, I like getting dressed on my own," she said brightly. "It makes me feel independent."

Of course, she never really got dressed on her own, but that was another story.

This seemed to satisfy Violet, and after the maid had put away every last dress, straightened every shoe, and finally turned down the bed, she at last let herself be shoved out the door.

 _I'm going to have to have Cedric lock it next time,_  reflected the harried princess.  _Maybe with a spell that turns the door to a pillow or something, so no one can knock._

Back in the closet, Sofia turned around in circles several times looking for the disappeared sorcerer. Wherever he had hidden his tiny self, he had hidden himself well. She sighed. Perhaps he had gotten tired of waiting and run off after all.

As she sighed she felt arms come around her waist from behind and looked over her shoulder quite startled to find absolutely nothing there.

Well, something was there.

" _Parea_ ," he said, and then he was quite visible again.

This time she let out a sigh of relief, turned around in his embrace, threw her arms around his neck, and slumped against him, obliging him to carry her weight.

"Maybe we ought to sleep in your room," she said, quite frazzled.

He pulled the tiara off her head and threw it over his shoulder quite negligently, and then stroked her hair comfortingly.

"And where do you expect me to hide you in there, when someone comes looking for the missing Princess Sofia?" Cedric demanded with quiet amusement. "Wormie is, well, he's not altogether on board with all of," he paused and then waved his arm vaguely, "This. He'd give you away if I tried to stuff you under the desk or something. Besides," he said practically, "Your bed is much more comfortable."

And there was no arguing with that.


End file.
